As a backup plan I grabbed a knife too then hid them in my pockets and slipped towards him like a thief in the night. Or a psycho in plain sight, but who cared?
He twisted towards me just before I made it to him, his reflexes almost sharp enough to beat me, but I’d been ready for it, getting a sense of him from the moment I’d first laid eyes on him. This was a tricksy one, that was for sure.
His meaty hand wrapped around my wrist half a breath before I slammed the taser into his side and I cursed as I was gifted a secondhand dose of the blast myself through the contact.
He toppled backwards, colliding with the door to the cellar, his death grip on my wrist bringing me with him as the two of us took a tumble down the fucking stairs.
I swore as I hit every damn step on the way down, the arsehole’s big body as fucking painful to collide with as the steps every time I crashed into it.
We landed in a heap and I groaned as I rolled off of him, leaving him twitching on the ground from the shock of the taser as I cupped my junk in my hand and tried not to black out from the pain of that big bastard slamming his knee into my freshly pierced cock.
“Fuck me,” I wheezed as I gripped the railing and heaved myself to my feet.
I moved across the room, unlocking my killing parlour, and taking a pair of bolt cutters by the name of Jim-Bob from the wall and returned to the behemoth who was still resting in a pool of agony at the foot of the stairs. I made quick work of removing the broken metal cuffs from each of his wrists, making sure he couldn’t turn them into a weapon somehow before tossing them and Jim-Bob back into my killing room and locking the door up tight again.
I hauled my sorry self up the steps one at a time before coming face to face with Brooklyn who stood at the top of them, her eyes narrowed and her hand on the doorknob as I fell still before her.
“Give me one reason why I shouldn’t just lock you down there, Hellfire,” she demanded, her voice all threat and no mercy in her electric blue eyes.
I wetted my lips, forcing my hand away from my dick as I took her in in the lilac jumpsuit she was now wearing, the thing covering her from neck to ankle yet clinging to every curve so perfectly that she practically looked naked before me.
“Pops,” I said, the sound of the big fella groaning behind me making me shift uncomfortably. I’d hit him with the taser again if I had to, but I would rather just get that locked door between me and him then give him a night of reflection in the dark instead.
“Truly?” she breathed, her eyes going all wide and her lips parting.
“I saw your kills,” I replied in a low tone. “Saw the way you’d pulled it off, how you made your demons suffer at your hand. It was a fucking masterpiece, love,” I admitted. “I told you I’d reward you once you impressed me. And I’m impressed.”
Brooklyn squealed with excitement, leaping on me and wrapping her arms and legs fully around my body so that I had no choice but to grab a handful of her arse to help hold her in place.
I stepped through the door while she hugged me tightly, sobbing something against my neck about how she still hated me, but she’d also really needed to hear those words after the day she’d had and I nodded.
I locked the door with my free hand before drawing one of my guns as I stepped further into the kitchen, unsurprisingly finding Mateo ready with a carving knife and a promise of my demise written all over his surly features.
“I thought we were in a truce, lad?” I questioned, the corner of my lips lifting as Brooklyn remained in my arms, squeezing me tight between her thighs and letting tears fall on my neck.
“That ended when Brooklyn got back to safety,” he replied in that thick accent of his.
I nodded slowly, letting Brooklyn drop from my arms as she turned her attention to the violence simmering in the room.
“Fair enough,” I agreed.
I kept my gun aimed at him and pulled my cell phone out of my back pocket with my other hand and casually opened up the app which controlled the perimeter sensor on that fancy collar he was wearing.
“You might wanna move into the lounge there, lad,” I warned him, my thumb hovering over the accept button for the new boundary I’d just set.
“Why?” he barked.
“Because I am officially rescinding your invitation to the kitchen and the upstairs portion of the house too. I don’t need you getting easy access to any weapons, and I don’t wanna have to sleep with one eye open neither. You’ll also find you can’t get into my tool shed or the garage, just in case you were inclined to look there for something murderous. We can’t have too much bloodshed in the house after all – it’s murder on the carpet cleaning bills.”
“What the fuck are you-”
I cut him off by hitting accept on my phone, a bark of laughter escaping me as he went rigid right away, his body twitching and jerking from the shock of the collar before he collapsed to the kitchen floor and the knife fell from his hand, skittering away across the tiles.
“Oooh, zappy,” Brooklyn purred before turning and pulling the closest cupboard open as she searched for Coco Pops.
I left her to that as I crossed the room, taking hold of Mateo’s ankle and dragging him away from the kitchen before that collar got too excited and fried his brains or some shit, hauling him along into the front room and past the grey couch which marked the line of his new boundary.
He kicked out at me before I could release him, his foot clipping me in the jaw and making me stumble back as pain blossomed through my face. I roared a laugh as I backed up, rubbing at it and admitting to myself that the man had a damn good kick on him. Like a donkey some might say.
I left him there to jerk and twitch himself back to normal while I made a quick sweep of the room, grabbing a couple of hidden knives and a gun from their hidey holes before striding down the hall towards the front of the house and gathering up a few more.
There were a couple of guest rooms on the ground floor beyond the front door, and I was feeling generous enough to let him have his pick between them for his new prison.
“You earned yourself a comfy bed with your help out there, el burro,” I called to him as I made my way back to the kitchen and dumped the weapons well away from him.
Mateo hurled a bunch of Mexican cursing my way and I chuckled as I leaned my shoulder against the door jamb and watched Brooklyn continue her hunt.
She ignored me as she pulled cupboard after cupboard open, hunting ravenously and putting on a show for me while I let my heart settle back into a normal rhythm at last.
She was here. Safe.
The screaming which had been taking place in my head ever since she’d left me had fallen quiet at last and I just soaked in her company while she focused on her task.
“You liar,” she hissed suddenly, whirling on me and pointing a spoon my way like she fully intended to do me bodily harm with the thing. “There’s not a Pop in this place!”
“Calm down, little psycho,” I replied, moving towards her and letting her press the spoon to my heart as I reached beyond her to one of the open cupboards and retrieved a bowl from it before grabbing the milk from the fridge. “I’m a man of my word. Come, you’ll have your Pops.”
I turned away from her narrow-eyed stare and strode out into the living room again, my gaze sweeping over the fire damage to the wall on the other side of the fireplace before I led the way up the stairs to the walkway above us, guiding her into the master suite.